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Thai Cashew Chicken

A few years ago I visited Thailand with a couple of friends. We traveled from Bangkok to Koh Samui and then up to Chang Mai and had the most amazing time doing it all. While in Chang Mai we attended a Thai cooking class taught by some locals. They took us to the market to buy ingredients before taking us to their home where we learnt to cook Green Thai Curry, Pad Thai and this little dish, Thai Cashew Chicken.

While my amazing tan faded and the blue elephant print trousers I bought developed holes, this recipe has stuck with me all those years. And for good reason! The dish is flavoured with oyster sauce, soy sauce and garlic. Mixed with the amazing flavours of the toasted cashews (literally the most tasty little things and my favourite in this recipe) this simple dish becomes the most flavoursome weeknight meal to add to your repertoire. The original recipes calls for onion, baby corn and mushroom, but I’ve upped the veg game with some extra peppers and sugar snap peas because apparently veggies are meant to be pretty good for you?

I would advice cooking all of the chicken and veggies independently to ensure they stir fry properly. If you end up throwing them all into the wok together they’re going to steam instead of stir fry and you might find things aren’t evenly cooked through. I always have a bowl next to my hob to throw all the cooked ingredients in once they’re done. Then it’s just a case of throwing it all back in the wok to add the sauces and serving it in a bowl with a few fancy garnishes. Boom.

How do you stir fry?

Firstly make sure all of your ingredients are prepared and ready to go. That means chopping any meat or veg, measuring out any sauces and having any accompaniments such as rice or noodles cooked. Stir frying is a quick process and you don’t want to be caught out chopping up veg while you’ve got food cooking/burning on the stove. Preparation is key!

Woks were made for cooking like this, but if you don’t have one a big frying pan would work just as well. A high heat is required when stir-frying – get your wok nice and hot before adding anything else in. In this particular dish cashews are stir-fried without any oil as there is no risk of them sticking to the pan. Oils that can withstand a high heat are best used in this type of cooking, that includes oils such as groundnut, vegetable and (believe it or not) olive oil. Then it’s time to get cooking!

Once the oil is nice and hot start by cooking protein (such as meat, tofu or tempeh) with flavourings such as garlic and ginger. Once cooked I remove this from the wok and put it to the side in a bowl. Allow the wok to come back up to temperature before stir frying the vegetables one to two at a time, removing them to the bowl once done. This is to ensure the pan isn’t overcrowded and that the vegetables cook evenly and quickly. Start with harder veggies such as carrots through to softer veggies like sugar snaps and mushrooms. Once everything is cooked, add it all back to the pan to warm through and add any sauces, noodles and rice before dishing up!

If you try this Thai Cashew Chicken or have any questions let me know in the comments!